Bones
by SeaBreeze
Summary: After the events of Malachor V, the Jedi Exile Jude Bast must leave her friends and companions to face the unknown Sith threat beyond the Outer Rim. First, though, she has to deal with her pilot...


Bones

By Seabreeze

Author's Note: Dunno where this came from. Actually I do. But too lazy to tell you. Or write full sentences. Slightly alternate universe. Post-the game.

Point of View Changes with line breaks. Keep up ;)

Disclaimer. Obsidian, Bioware, Lucasarts. Peace out.

* * *

He had been avoiding her.

She knew exactly why, of course, but that didn't stop it from bothering her.

He was always keeping himself open for her. At her 'beck and call', as Mira would tease. Ready to be whatever she needed, whenever she needed, though he usually tried to disguise his eagerness with sarcasm and complaints.

This evasion was something altogether new, and though she understood it, that didn't stop it from being any less frustrating.

Today, she decided. Today I will finally corner him. There are no excuses I will accept.

Atton made it that much easier when she found him in the engine room hunched over an opened pack of pazaak cards spread out on the durasteel floor.

"Atton," she said, smiling as she entered the room. He visibly stiffened, something she pretended not to notice. "What are you up to?"

"Jude," he replied grudgingly, refusing to turn and look at her. "Just a little pazaak."

"Is it going well?" she asked innocently, peering over his shoulder, but he shot her a glare.

"What do you want?" he grumped, laying down a +4 card and tentatively fingering the -2 card.

"I was hoping I could talk you into running down to the mercenary camp with me," she said, leaning against the wall. They had headed straight for Dantooine after the events of Malachor V, and unless he was the fool Kreia had always insisted he was, he would know she had no real business with the mercenaries.

"Can't you get anyone else?" he asked, his tone of voice so hostile that she frowned behind his back.

"No," she said. "I can't. Mandalore needs at least another day in the kolto tank, and Mical needs to monitor him. Mira and Bao-Dur are working on getting the Hawk hyperspace ready, and you're really the only one not busy – "

"Coincidentally, I'm also the only one not given a job to do." Atton snapped, tossing down a card with an angry flick of his wrist. "and what of the droids? _Surely_ you can convince one of them to go with you."

Jude shrugged.

"They're not much company."

"Oh, so it's _company_ you're after?!"

Atton turned sharply to face the Exile, revealing the most recent change to his appearance – a brand new mechanical arm, courtesy of the Ebon Hawk's mechanic. The plasteel fingers flexed just late enough for it to be noticeable – Bao-Dur had said it took awhile to get the hang of having an artificial limb.

Jude met his eyes.

"Yes. Yours. Please?"

Atton glared at her for a full minute before snarling;

"Frack. Fine."

* * *

_In her every cell, Jude felt the life slipping out of him. She set her jaw – one was enough, and it was stopping there. Not him. Not _him_. She could feel, too, his will to live slipping – finally the fool everyone called him._

_Her body complained – she had refused any medpacs during her fight with Kreia. Every muscle ached, and those burns Kreia's multiple lightsabers made in her flesh felt like daggers._

_Still, whatever pain she felt was only proof that she was vibrantly alive. That same life that was slipping so swiftly, along with his blood… she pressed on. _

_She rounded a corner, tilting wildly. Only one corridor left… she would make it in time, and if she worked quickly enough… yes, it was possible. The pain was rolling off of him in sickening waves – she swallowed her nausea – and he was, for the first time ever, doing nothing to hide that fact. So he understood the gravity of the situation… still…_

_She did not slow when she entered the huge empty room – not when she saw the blood, not when she saw her pilot splayed in the middle of it, separated from his left arm._

"_Atton!" she slid in the slickness of his blood, not caring, and letting her knees hit the stone ground painfully as she quickly surveyed the damage. She had had an idea, but seeing it for herself always helped, as grotesque as it was in Atton's case. He turned his head slowly, pathetically, to face her._

"_You're… alive… did I… save you yet?"_

"_Hush, Atton. I need to focus." Being careful not to disturb his person too much, she ripped off his left sleeve. The sight – the stump where his arm had been – was almost too much for her stomach, but she eased the fear in her veins – soothing; he would be fine in minutes…_

"_Your eyes… that bad, huh?" he turned his head away again. "Always was ugly… now the outside matches. Was waiting for this, but… 's not fair. Let you down…"_

"_Listen to me, Atton, this isn't the end." She said, irritable – it was much harder to concentrate when he was spilling his soul…_

_He winced, squeezing his eyes shut, determined to continue. She almost doubted he knew she was talking._

"…_was supposed to save you… tired of living anyway… too many deaths…." He took a deep breath, and as she healed him she noted that breathing was coming easier now; his heart was pumping less blood out of his body as she staunched the flow in her mind. "Never told you," he whispered, his brow relaxing. "_lied_ to you…"_

"_Atton," she said through gritted teeth. "I can save you. You have plenty of time to save me after today, but I really need you to relax… stop fighting, Atton!"_

_He groaned – whether he registered it or not, he still thought he was dying. He turned back to her and stared up at her until she met his eyes._

"_I don't want you to see me like this. I don't wanna… die in front of you! Can't…bear it…"_

_Her hand rested over his heart, which was beating at a steady, comforting pace. As she looked at him, the gashes on his face were slowly pulling together – they might scar, she thought absentmindedly – healing was a tricky process, and the fact that there was so much to do…_

"_You're not dying, Atton," she told him softly, patting his chest. "I know healing can be painful sometimes, but – "_

"_Loved you from the moment I first saw you," the intimate tone of his most important confession, and the confession itself, shocked her and sent a painful jab into her ribcage. Sarcastic, mysterious, tough-guy Atton… and yet the echo of his voice in her head, there was something so truthful in it… "Thought you were a dream." He gazed into her eyes, and the love was so honest and naked in the look that she felt, for the first time in over a decade, the desire to cry._

"_Atton – "_

"_Meant every word. Tried to play it off… as a joke…"_

_He was settling in his own blood – his chest rising and falling easily, his stump of a left arm almost entirely healed and covered in healthy flesh. Jude could only stare, open mouthed, at him as his body finished off what she had started._

"_Wasn't… funny…"_

_With that, he was sound asleep, not having the slightest idea that he would wake up in less than a day's time, fully alive…_

_

* * *

_

Atton watches the breeze tug at her hair, and when the moment becomes too long, clears his throat.

"Hey, listen,"

She turns brown eyes to meet his, and it becomes that much harder to speak.

"All that stuff I said, on Malachor V… when I thought I was dying… look, you can forget all of it. If you want."

She looks down and smiles, and the dying sun's brilliance strokes her cheek in a way that makes him want to stroke it, too. After what feels like forever, she says;

"Your heart holds many secrets."

Fracking Jedi.

Before he can complain, she catches his eye. Her words freeze his insides.

"Atton, you are not a joke. You have never let me down," – her hand is on his face, loving – "and you are not ugly."

He knows she means on the inside, but on the outside, too, now that angry pink scars trace his face and body and there is a metal arm where a flesh one once was. She holds his gaze so long and so deep that he thinks he might scream; it's like when she digs in his head but it's just her, and not the Force, but when she finally blinks, he feels a little stupid for ever thinking such things.

"Right…" he says, sarcastic by reflex, which he knows she immediately understands. She smiles and turns her gaze back to the open Khoonda Plains. Something about her is strange… the way her eyes trace the scenery, as if committing it to memory… and then it hits him.

"You're leaving, aren't you," he states, watching her closely.

"Yes," she replies without hesitation. "I am."

"I take it this isn't a family vacation," Atton continues, feeling resentment swell in him. The exile turns to look at him and smiles again.

"No, not exactly."

Two emotions war within him; to his surprise, it is fear that wins out.

"Well, hey, I know you like running around the universe alone, but… need any company?"

She is looking out across the plains again.

"I shouldn't," she breathes; he is irritated again.

"I didn't ask if you should or shouldn't. I asked what you need."

"Then yes, I do need company." She is looking at him, but this time she is not smiling. She holds his gaze. "But it is never about what I need, Atton. It is about what the universe needs from me. I can't afford to have what I want. Not now."

"Says who?!" Atton challenges. "That old witch who tried to kill us all?"

"Yes, it was Darth Traya who said so."

"I _never_ understood why you took her so seriously, Jude, but now? After everything she did to you? To us?!"

"Kreia loved me, Atton. She never lied to me, and in the end, she told me everything. For my own sake."

"Oh, I'm sure," Atton snarls. As usual, he is upset and heated, and the exile remains calm. "She only _wanted_ you to turn out just like her – a bitter, lonely old hag."

At his words, Jude grins, but Atton didn't say anything funny.

"Maybe you're right. She never did like you very much, did she?"

He cannot think of a response, because he is not sure where she is going with any of this. After a moment, she nods.

"It only makes it more clear, Atton. I must go alone."

"Quit talking in riddles, Jedi," he spits.

"I must go alone, Atton, because none I will bring with me will survive. That's what Darth Traya told me, not for your sake – you'll forgive me, but you agree that she never cared for you – but for mine. She knew I would never forgive myself if I lost a friend where I'm going."

"How can she possibly know?" Atton challenges. "How can you?"

"You're willing to risk it?" Jude asks.

"Yes." Emphatic.

"I am not."

He stops and watches her serious face, wind pulling thick locks of cropped hair across her face. She can't bear to lose me, he realizes. Still.

"You can't stop me. I've made my choice, and it's mine to make."

"Then I'm asking you, Atton. Please. Stay here with the others. Help rebuild the Academy. Please."

"Like hell I will!" he fumes. "My place is with you, and it always will be. I know it, Jude."

"Atton," she takes his hands in her own, so small and comparison and yet still so strong, and he realizes this is the first time she has purposely touched him. "Please. You know this is hard for me. I want you to come with me, but you just can't. Please don't make it harder."

"Why is this so important to you?" he demands, but his voice is softer; he can't help it. "Why does it all have to be a battle? Against what you want, even, Jude. Just stop fighting."

"Because yours isn't the only heart that holds many secrets."

He feels his heart skip a beat. Does that mean – ? What does it mean?

"Jude," he asks slowly, and she is trying to take her hands back, but he holds onto them. "If it were you back there in Malachor, and not me, who was dying… what would you have said?"

She squirms, truly wanting to escape his hands, his gaze… but he holds her fast with both.

"That you should finish your training, Atton. Go with Mical and rebuild the Academy."

"And beyond that? What would you say that was just for me?"

"I'm not dying, Atton."

She pulls away finally, and begins to leave him on the hill overlooking the plains, but he calls out to her.

"Jude." He says softly. "Just tell me. Please."

She stops.

"And if I do?" she asks. "Will you agree to stay?"

"I can't promise you that, Jude. You know I can't. But I'll consider it, I really will."

She returns to him after a long pause and stops just before him, looking up to gaze straight into his eyes.

"I would tell you that I love you. That I shouldn't and I know that, and that I'd done everything I could to stop and to forget, but I just can't. I would tell you that you make me feel normal and real, like all my life I've been floating above my body, and you pull me back into my bones, where I belong."

Atton only stares at her, dumbfounded, and she takes the moment to reach up for his face again, stroking the scarred skin.

"That's why I need you to stay, Atton,"

* * *

A/N: That turned out totally not how I meant it to when I started. Yay! I like when the story takes me places I didn't expect to go. Hopefully this one wasn't too confusing.

My exile really really struggles with having feelings for Atton. In this case, the only way to possibly get him to let her go off into the universe alone was to tell him what she refuses to even let herself know. Presumeably, he does let her go. I don't actually know. Hence why the story stopped here, baha. This is a one-shot.

PLEASE REVIEW!


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